


The Days We Might Have Seen

by amaranthinecanicular



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2110080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaranthinecanicular/pseuds/amaranthinecanicular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He told you, once, that you never lost him, and that you never would. If you have to endure a thousand lifetimes of this hell, you'll see that promise proven true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Days We Might Have Seen

The first time, he is the last.

It’s a small town, the kind where the neighbors know the neighbors and the neighbors’ kids and the neighbors’ fucking grandkids. You’re hornless in a way that makes you feel empty, no matter how dinky and pathetic yours were to begin with, and your skin is sun-cooked brown, and it bothers you how much sunshine _doesn’t_ bother you now, but at least you have all those douchebags back. As long as they’re here, as long as they’re yours, you won’t complain about being human.

Most of them you grew up with; when you said small town you meant small. Small enough that you practically live on top of each other, small enough that your dad knows each of their parents as old friends. Hell, you practically grew up with the Maryams breathing down your neck and forcing you into red wool sweaters; Sollux Captor is more like some high-strung lisping cousin than a friend (and don’t humans have so many names for things, family members, relatives, you can barely keep track, _dadmombrothersistercousinuncleaunt_ -). Fucking typical.

The rest are here too: Terezi has lived two houses down your whole life, Nepeta just around the corner; Feferi, Eridan and Equius live in the nicer part of town, however tiny ‘nice’ is; Vriska’s always running around causing trouble and dragging Tavros and Aradia into it, as usual. Their skin is different shades of brown and beige and pink instead of gray, and their hair is any number of bizarre colors instead of the standard black, but in the end they’re still the same assholes you knew - Terezi still licks the shit out of things, Eridan’s still a whiny priss with a dyed purple streak in his hair, Aradia’s still morbidly fascinated with death, the lovable freak.You even have your dumb humans back; John’s grown up here, with his sister and his dad, and Lalonde and her mom moved here too early for you to remember. Strider and Jade came a little later, Jade with her brother from some secluded island when you were in fifth grade, Dave and his bro from Texas when you were in seventh. You don’t know if any of them remember like you do; you don’t know if they still have nightmares of watching each other die. You haven’t had the heart to ask them, coward that you are, and god knows you wouldn’t ask even if they did.

Life as a human is pathetic and squishy, and this town is an inconsequential blip on the map, a dot in the middle of nowhere, but it’s - it’s _better_ , and you can’t deny that. No one’s dying, for one thing. There’s no hemocaste - everyone’s blood is the same candy red as yours always has been. Life is mundane, and boring, and simple, and so damn _good_ you used to cry about it like a pathetic little nook-stain. They’re here. They’re alive. A lifetime later and you still love the shit out of all them, each and every one, and you’re happy.

Well.

Almost happy.

You’re still missing one.

You used to wonder what he’d be like, when you met him. It was never a question of if, not at first. The others were all here, by some twist of sympathy in the shriveled little dried-out heart of paradox space, he would come too. You used to look at the sky and think of waving horns raking at the stars, and wonder what would have changed, what stayed the same. Would his hair still be the same curly mess it always was, would you still have the completely irrational desire to wrestle a comb through it? Would his guardian still be an unforgivable bulgelick, would he still be a junkie? Would he be less of a gangly cod-packing asshole, afraid of commitment and hiding from all his problems in a vent? Would you be able to help him better this time? Would he remember you?

Time passed - years instead of sweeps - and you and your friends grew older, in the bones and in the eyes, but the smiles stayed the same. Thirteen came and went, no apocalypse in sight. You survived middle school, and then high school, somehow, despite being a whiny little shitcanoe capsizing in the river of bullshit teenage hormones. He didn’t come. Suddenly you’re graduating from high school and the asshole still isn’t here, and you’re not wondering about the differences anymore because you just want to see him, and you’ve got a full scholarship offer across the country, and you don’t know what to do-

Four weeks before you leave for a new school and a new life, a stranger blows into town.

Being the itty bitty rural town it is, the whole place is buzzing with gossip. You still remember what it was like when the Striders rolled in, with their southern accents and their douchebag shades; they were the talk of the town for a whole goddamn year. Now is no different. There are whispers and rumors of a long-spined ghost with impossible eyes, a vagabond carrying clubs on his back, a painted pierrot with dark secrets in the shadow of the small smile he always wore. In other words, a bunch of runny over exaggerated horse shit from the mouths of small town hics with nothing better to do then blow hot air out each other’s asses. You hear the rumors yourself because gossip travels like the fucking plague in your town - you do _not_ want to revisit the exploratory exploits of John discovering his own sexuality - but you hear it first from Dave, as you help him convert shit in his apartment to shit in his suitcase.

The thought of leaving this dumb, dear little town behind had terrified you at first - what if they all disappeared while you were gone, what if you couldn’t get back, what if they forgot you, what if he came once you left - but your fears were eased when you discovered that Dave was offered a music scholarship to a school in the same city. Now when you’re not driving yourself into an early grave worrying about finding that last missing piece of your ruined soul, you’re settling living arrangements and splitting bills and rent with Dave Strider, the emotionally stunted idiot who somehow, over the course of two lifetimes, has become something like you’re best friend.

You’re wrestling the Keurig into a box when Dave says, “Looks like we’re leaving just when things are getting interesting around here.”

You spare him a grunt over your shoulder that may have been “fucking asshole” or may have been “ducking grass hole”. You’ll leave the guessing to him.

"Some new guy moved into town," he continues as though you hadn’t spoken, "or just passing through, or some other bullshit. Town’s up in fucking arms. Half the population is betting he’s an outlaw on the run, the other’s thinking he’s just a homeless junkie. My money’s on one man circus show, personally, looking the way he does."

You don’t hear your heartbeat in the silence that follows, because you’re pretty certain it stopped beating. You don’t care. “What did you say?”

"Some creepy fucking clown. Dirk just texted me, said he saw him at the diner. You might still catch him if you run. Don’t know why you’d want to, though."

Dave doesn’t look at you as he speaks; you can’t see his expression, and his voice is flat and unreadable. He probably has no idea exactly what he’s saying to you right now, exactly what it means. He probably has no idea at all.

When you tear out of the apartment and to the diner, he doesn’t stop you, and he never asks why.

The diner is the same as it ever was, the same shitty sign with the same shitty missing letters, so that SKAIA DINER is forever more SKAIA DIE (because apparently being a fucking assmunch doesn’t mean you can’t have a sick sense of humor, as paradox space is consistently proving). Despite the name, the place was always an endearingly pathetic hunk of rust and grease, and it still is, no matter how you look at it. It hasn’t changed, so there’s no feasible explanation for why you can’t open the door, other than maybe that you’re a weakass dirt licking coward. Except that doesn’t make any fucking sense either, because you faced down death more times than you could count during the game, so how the hell could you possibly be afraid of a fucking _diner_ of all the asinine things to piss your pants over?

When the door opens from the inside and you’re set face to face with a ghost, you have to admit that maybe it wasn’t the diner you were afraid of.

Gamzee Makara stares down at you, the same as you ever knew him, that gangly orphan boy with the big sad eyes and the sleepy smile. You thought you’d never see him again - you thought you’d hate him if you did. Your face must be a fucking sight to behold because Gamzee reaches out to you, cautious like you’re some wounded barkbeast (dog, old habits die hard).

"Breathe easy, brother," he instructs slowly, hands raised in a placating gesture, "get your chill on. Breathe easy. That’s it, breathe easy."

Oh, wow, you hadn’t realized you weren’t breathing. You try to listen to him but your breaths are shuddering, catching as you stare at him. He tries one more time: “Go on, my best motherfucking friend, breath easy.”

It’s when he says best friend that you lose it. All your muscles tense up, like springs about about to uncoil, you reach for him, arms outstretched-

And punch him in the face.

Oh.

That…wasn’t what you were expecting, but you guess it works too.

"It’s about damn time, you horrendous bastard!" He stumbles back a step, making the doors rattle as he bumps into them. You follow. "Who the hell gave you the right to give me such a heart attack, huh?"

"Best friend-"

You punch him again.

"And who the almighty _fuck_ gave you the right to call me best friend?”

This time he goes down; people are starting to stare, from the windows of the diner and from the street behind you, but you can’t bring yourself to give half a shit. Gamzee holds his cheek, already swelling, and his expression is one of utter shock as he gapes up at you. It only makes you angrier, and you kick at him. “That’s for being such an unforgivable honking fucktard!” You haul him up as high as your compact muscles can haul, and then you headbutt him, as hard as you can. “And that’s for everything _else!_ ”

You headbutt him again, and again, and again, until suddenly you’re not really doing much but pressing your forehead to his, cursing softly. There’s a small crowd around you now, and someone tries to lift you off - maybe Jade, you think, maybe someone else, it doesn’t matter, because Gamzee’s arms beat them to it.

“Shoosh, best friend,” he murmurs into your hair, and god, his voice is just as you remember, “Hushabye, shh, s’all good now, I’ve got you.”

There’s a smile in his voice and you punch at him weakly as you continue to growl beneath your breath and oh, who the fuck are you kidding, you’re crying, you’re sobbing like a fucking wiggler as he hums softly and holds you, holds you, holds you. You’ve waited a whole lifetime for him to hold you again.

“What took you so long?” you gasp, as he cards long fingers through your hair, “What the fuck _took_ you so long?”

“You ain’t an easy star to find, motherfucker,” he chuckles, and wipes at your tears with a broad, calloused thumb. His voice is endlessly fond. “But damn if you don’t shine the brightest. I just up and followed your light.”

You sniffle sulkily. “Jesus christ, shut your mouth before actual shit starts spewing out.”

And Gamzee just laughs, low and warm, and you lay there and hold each other until a waiter awkwardly kicks you off the diner stoop.

For four sweet and perfect months, he is alive, and he is yours.

You take him home. Your dad lets him stay with you, after a lot of convincing not to call his parents - he’s only sixteen, going on seventeen in a few weeks. After some more convincing, Dave concedes a third space in your apartment once you make the move. Gamzee’s practically attached to your hip and refuses to leave it, and you’re having trouble hiding how pleased it makes you.

It’s the day before you leave on a big cramped roadtrip to your new home, you and Dave and Gamzee, when you finally work up the nerve to ask him why - why he’s coming with you, why he insists on staying by your side. A few good weeks haven’t been enough to rewrite all your insecurities from the game, and you guess this proves it. You’re watching a movie, his head in your lap and your comb in his hair (you were right, it’s as wild as ever, and it makes you irrationally happy to wrestle with those curls again).

“I go where you go, best beloved,” he says, easy as you please, as though it’s the simplest thing in the world. His eyes are wide and clear; he hasn’t once shown symptoms of relapse, and you’ve been proud. “You and me, we’re written in the stars. I’m doing right by you, this time. Cross my motherfucking heart.”

The next day you leave for a brand new life in Dave’s beaten up old truck. He takes the first leg of the trip, with you in shotgun and Gamzee crowded in the back with the bags. You spend the first hour or so hopped up on adrenaline, fighting for control of the radio with Dave and scolding Gamzee for this or that. Often it’s leaning over to hug you around the seat, because he has to take off his seat belt to do it, but after about the fifth time Dave rolls his eyes and tells you to let him do it because otherwise he’s going to take off his own seatbelt and chuck himself from the car, and that would leave you without half the rent for your new apartment, so you recline back into Gamzee’s long arms and nod off there.

You wake up in the hospital.

The lights are too bright. There are needles and tubes all poking out of you, and the half-cyborg look might be cool if you weren’t aching all over. Dave’s asleep in a chair by your side; it takes too long to register the bruises around his eyes, the bandages and the gauze. At last the questions that you should have asked filter in, muddy and sluggish: where are you? What time is it? What happened? How did Dave get hurt? Did you get hurt?

Where’s Gamzee?

This question rattles around in your brain long after the others are gone, even though you feel detached from the concern and panic you know should come with it. _Where’s Gamzee? Where’s Gamzee? Where’s Gamzee?_

At some point someone all in white comes in, and your first thought is _“doctorturer”_ , and your next thought is _“you’re a human you fucking idiot it’s just doctor”_. Your next thought is to ask her where Gamzee is, but she’s already gone and back with your father by the time you get your tongue to stop being a useless lump of shit.

They speak too fast to tell what’s going on. Everything registers on a delay, only the essential bits of information: you’ve been out for three days. Car crash. Concussion. Some other medical bullshit, but you’ll be okay. The panic is finally beginning to set in, cold and slow in the pit of your stomach; you try to demand they tell you where the fuck Gamzee is or someone is getting bitten, but all that comes out is a pleading, “Gamzee?” and then everyone goes quiet.

When they finally speak – the doctor, she’s the most composed, probably used to morbid shit like this – you don’t believe it at first. Gamzee can’t be dead. That asshole never dies, it is a universal impossibility. Paradox space practically wrote it in stone, or the paradox equivalent. Gamzee is dead – see, it just doesn’t compute. They’re mistaken, they have to be.

“You’re wrong,” you say, because they are, and you get pity for god’s sake, even from Dave, who woke up when you weren’t paying attention, and the look in his eyes is just wrongwrongwrong because Gamzee being dead is just wrongwrong _wrong_ —

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and you remember Dave at the wheel Gamzee without his belt arms around your shoulders laughing in your ear and he’s dead, he’s dead, you’ve lost him, he’s dead.

Gamzee is dead, and something within you dies with him.

==>

The second time, you find him.

You don’t waste any time. As soon as you’re old enough to hitchhike and defend yourself - fifteen, by your judgment - you’re off to find him, because hell if you’re going to let something like that happen again. You’ll protect him this time, like you should have last time, and the time before. It takes roundabout three years to track him down, in a small apartment apartment in London. Your bones ache and your feet are sore from countless miles, and you don’t care. The door opens after your fourth knock, and you find yourself struck breathless by the familiar indigo irises of a Makara.

You only met Kurloz a handful of times in the game. His shadow brought old ghosts to the surface; the curve of his spine and his horns were echoes of your lost clown’s, his wild, untamable hair a mirror image. Now that the milky whiteness of his eyes has been replaced with the vivid indigo that his dancestor shares, the similarities have only become eerily stronger. You’d bet all the money in your pockets that they’re brothers in this universe (you only have a couple bills in your pockets, but that’s not the fucking point, dumbass).

At least he’s not in the full body skeleton suit anymore, though you’re not so certain the alternative is much better: he’s wearing an actual suit, now, but the thin white tie and the delicate white accents still give off a skeletal illusion. Not to mention his mouth is still stitched up and it is still a pants-shittingly terrifying sight. You try not to show how utterly unnerved you are as you make vague gestures that you are 99% sure make you look like a drowning ferret to try and get across that you are looking for his brother. He blinks at you, slow and owlish, the exact same way Gamzee does - and then he makes a few quick, efficient gestures that get across his message better and clearer than words could: _mute, not deaf_. You are an endless fuckup.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. That was completely insensitive of me, I am now and forever will be a vomit-inducing disgrace to the universe-”

He smiles faintly and waves a hand, cutting you off. For a second you continue to stare at each other silently until he makes a distinct but polite go on motion, and you are shaken back to yourself with a disgusting blush coloring you all the way up to your ears.

“Right, uh, sorry - I’m here to see, uh, your brother? Gamzee? I mean, I think he’s your brother, you guys look bizarrely alike, uh-” shit, fuck, now you sound like Tavros, how the hell did _that_ happen, “Is he here?”

Kurloz looks at you for a long time with eyes that are suddenly too sharp and too focused and too - too intense. He seems to loom, suddenly, and you want to shrink in on yourself because suddenly you’re remembering that in another life this mime used to be the Grand Fucking Highblood - but you’ve spent lifetimes too searching for your stupid, precious clown, and you refuse to give up here because some hot-shot troll has-been has got it in his head he can scare you off like a dog with his tail tucked away. You square your shoulders and stand your ground, grit your teeth and prepare for the worst as Kurloz bears down upon you-

And then suddenly all the menacing, all the threatening, all the intimidation is gone, out of him just like that, he’s completely deflated - his eyes are suddenly weary and old, in a way you never saw during the game, at least not on him. He makes a few signs, and when it’s clear that you know fuck-all about sign language, he fingerspells what he’s saying slowly enough to follow. You are the half-baked asshole who thought it was cool to learn the alphabet and then never go further, so it takes an embarrassingly long time.

_You want to see my dearest of motherfuckers, is that so? You want to see Gamzee?_

You nod, slowly, and Kurloz nods back. His eyes pierce straight through you.

_Are you sure?_

Your mouth goes dry, and pulse goes double-time, and for a second, a single moment of inexplicable terror, you want to say no.

“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t have traveled a trillion fucking miles just to throw up my hands and say ‘hey! I guess I changed my mind because I am a wishy-washy little shit who likes to put himself through enough emotional duress to kill a fucking monk’ for shits and giggles.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on the clown’s lips, but it’s a small, sad thing. He nods, and then leads you into the apartment.

The place is dark, and lived in. It’s messy, but in a strangely organized sort of way that Gamzee never was; well, there had to be _some_ differences between them. The walls are filled with faces you remember, faintly, of Kurloz’s friends and crew - and then there are a few of Gamzee, as a gangly all-bones kid, elbows and knees everywhere, as a sloping lazy-eyed teen with a familiar lopsided smile. His hair is pitch black in this world, the way it was in your first world - unlike then, his skin is a warm, sunkissed brown instead of slate gray, and his horns are a vacuum of empty space above his head, but his dumb, dear face is just the same. It makes your guts ache, your hands heavy, your smile painful on your face. You miss him, you miss him so much it burns. You don’t know what you’ll say to him when you see him, but you give about negative five shits about that. All you know, all that matters, is that you keep him safe. You’ll do right by him, this time. You’ll hold him, cradle his precious disaster in your hands, and this time you won’t let go-

You nearly run into Kurloz’s back, so lost in your self-righteous daydreams. He’s staring solemnly down at a photograph of Gamzee, about as old as you are now, smiling soft and genuine as he plays the guitar. There are a couple flowers scattered tastefully in front of it, and also a wayward soda can, what the fuck is that doing there. For a second, you are completely and utterly baffled, and also kind of angry, because if Gamzee wasn’t home he could have just told you and you’d have come back later-

Kurloz looks at you, a ghost’s smile on his face and tears in his eyes, and your whole world goes death-silent.

 _Heroine overdose, motherfucker._ He tells you, after what must be a thousand years, a thousand lifetimes. _My brother was the most upright miracle the world saw fit to grant, but decreed he was too precious to be anything more than fleeting. The wicked elixirs got their claws in him and wouldn’t let go until they had their motherfucking way._

Oh.

He’s saying you’re too late.

==>

The third time, he finds you.

You spent years searching for him, sometimes alone and sometimes with others. When Jake and Jade went exploring you joined them. A couple years after you went out on your own, Dave and John joined you. A couple years after that, Dave stayed. He didn’t have to, and you told him so, but he did anyway - maybe he felt guilty for that first time, that car, that crash; maybe he just wanted to help you because he’s your friend. The reason didn’t matter. It didn’t make any difference in the end, but you never stopped appreciating his presence at your side.

A little voice in your head says, sometimes, that Dave might be better for you, in the end. As a moirail, as a partner, as a friend. At least Dave is always there. At least Dave always comes back. At least Dave lives.

The rest of you hates yourself for even thinking it, especially when you’re ninety two years old and you can’t go travelling anymore and a group of fucking cowards try to mug you in the alleyway on the way home from the market, because that’s when your leg breaks and that’s when you think you’re going to die and that’s when Gamzee bursts from the shadows and sends the weak ass punks scattering in minutes.

He’s just as you remember the last time you saw him as a human, the difference being that this time he’s right here, breathing, before you, and not some fraying two dimensional photograph. His hair is just as wild. His eyes are just as bright. He stares at you, breathing raggedly, and you stare back. You almost can’t believe it. You’re almost convinced this is just a last-ditch effort from your stupid, age-addled brain to die peacefully, but then his lip trembles and he smiles like dawn breaking and he says, voice as thick and damp as yours feels, “Beloved?”

And you know you’ve come home, at last, after ninety two long years spent far, far away.

He carries you to the hospital, and somehow you manage to talk the doctors into letting him stay by your side. You have to tell them he’s your grandson, which is weird as shit but the only explanation they’ll accept seeing as he’s fifteen at most and you’ve long since passed old as balls. When they still seem doubtful, Gamzee pipes up with, much to your surprise, a quick sob story about how you’re the only family he’s got, and he can’t bare to lose you and how he feels guilty for not getting to you fast enough to stop this, etcetera etcetera a bloo bloo bloo. It only occurs to you after your leg is splinted and you’re flying high on morphine and Gamzee is crowding into your cot and crying silently into your shoulder that it might not have been a bullshit story after all.

He comes home with you because he has no other home to return to; for a second you think to ask about Kurloz, but seeing as Kankri wasn’t your brother in this world you assume Kurloz wasn’t his. It doesn’t matter. He’s here now; if he wants to tell you about the times that he wasn’t, well, you trust him to do so. It’s been too long since you really trusted him, and it feels good to do it again.

For days that turn go weeks that turn to months, he takes care of you. You’re an embarrassing bag of skin and brittle bones with anger management issues; you know it can’t be easy. But he’s patient and sweet and clumsily clever, and his presence is a priceless balm. In return you soothe his inexplicable rages and coax him back from his nightmares. During these moments you know this is what moiraillegiance is supposed to be - what the two of _you_ were supposed to be, in a better, kinder world. Like this one.

One day something occurs to you, a memory from a life gone by, as he’s helping wrestle you into your clothes. “Hey. Do you play the guitar?”

"Guitar? Not that I can get my recollect on, brother." For a second you’re crestfallen, but then he smiles at you, fond and a trifle sly. "Mandolin, though, that I reckon I can get you to groove to."

This is how your days pass. He stays with you, takes care of you, reads to you, and plays the mandolin for you, every day. Sometimes he sings and sometimes he doesn’t; his voice is a low, sweet thing, sweeter than you remember. In the sweetest moments, the difference in age seems to melt away; you’re just Karkat and he’s just Gamzee, and everything is indigo-hued and okay. Even when the age gap makes itself prominent - the days when you’re too weak to get out of bed, when neither of you can sleep for all your coughing fits - it’s not so bad. You console yourself through the humiliation of Gamzee having to help you bathe with the knowledge that, at last, you’ll go before him. He’ll live a full life, and you won’t have to see him die.

You always were a fool.

He’s sixteen when he goes out for groceries and doesn’t come back. You’re too old now to join him, your bones too brittle, but he’s gone on his own enough times that it doesn’t make either of you worry. The pharmacy is just around the corner. He kisses your brow and tucks you up warm - it’s winter, and the cold seeps into your home - and then he’s gone, and you never see him again.

You must have fallen asleep, because suddenly the shrill ring of the house phone is waking you up. It’s dark out. Gamzee doesn’t come when you call.

Hit and run. He might’ve made it if the ambulance hadn’t slipped on black ice. The hospital doesn’t have any records on Gamzee, but one of the nurses recognized his face through all the blood and remembered him as your grandson. All you can think of is how long he must have been there in the streets, cold and alone, because you failed him again.

==>

The fourth life.

The fifth.

Sixth.

He never makes it to seventeen.

==>

It’s been too long since you were a troll. The skin and the hair and the teeth are achingly familiar, and at the same time mercilessly foreign. Sometimes you catch yourself staring in the mirror, and it’s always a coin-flip, fifty-fifty – half the time you are delighted and transfixed, but the other you’re horrified at the monster staring back at you.

A lot of it’s different than you remembered. No, not different, backwards – perverted, almost. Okay, completely fucked up. They’ve got the hemocaste all wrong, kicking Feferi to the bottom and sticking you at the top, like that makes any fucking sense. In this world you’re the emperor, and for the first few sweeps it made your head spin, and for every sweep after you’ve hated it. You wanted to be a leader, not a god.

Dave is almost on par with you, with his bright blood and eyes, the same as yours. The difference is that you’re still the Sufferer’s descendent, which apparently makes you some holy figure or something. Dave is the heir to the military half of the empire, and you’re heir to the spiritual. You’re supposed to lead the people together, and even though sometimes Dave is confused by the natural aggression that comes with being a troll, you think the empire might stand a chance with the two of you fuck ups, especially since you’ve got Tavros and Aradia as your advisers. You and Dave alone might right the empire into the shithive, but they’ve got good heads on their shoulders, and never let you fuck up too bad.

The others are all here too, thankfully. Kanaya is your royal seamstress; Nepeta’s born to the Hunterrorists, and she recruited Equius as soon as she could talk. You’ve grown up with Terezi; you and Dave found her when you were three sweeps and never let her out of your sights again. Sollux, too – he’s been a shoe-in for Spymaster since the second his bony claws touched a husk. Tavros found Eridan and Feferi, and it was a lucky thing he did – the old-highbloods-now-lowbloods have it rough in this world, as rough as you did, and they had been surrounded by some vengeful limebloods when Tav stumbled upon them. It pissed you off to all hell that all this bigotry was still a thing in this world (and scared you, terrified you, you were in time for Eridan and Feferi but what about him, what if you fail him again—), but on the plus side, being on the low end of the spectrum for once really seemed to have to have gotten through the titanium thick skull of Eridan’s and finally taken him down a peg, and much as you hate to admit it, the fucker’s a lot more fun to be around now. You hear of Vriska out at sea, but you don’t call her back. You think she’s happier there.

Even the humans are here, trolls now, all appointed advisors: Rose political, Jade military, and John social (you’ll say whatever the fuck you want about the bucktoothed dork, but no one can deny the fucker’s lovable, and that’s even being a hotheaded blueblood).

The first decree you ever made was an empire-wide search for your clown. They advised you to make it a stealth mission and you agreed, grudgingly, and for one, two, three sweeps, you came up empty. They assumed you were a child searching for an imaginary friend, and put up with you because you were the Second Signless. You didn’t care what the hell they thought, as long as they brought you your clown. You wouldn’t leave it up to chance this time. You’d find him. Protect him.

None of this matters by the time you’re four sweeps old, because by then you’ve got him back, and, well, very little but him matters after that.

He’s your age, just a kid, but his eyes are old and fond when they bring him to you. You had feared being at the bottom of the foodchain would affect him negatively – you should have known better. Your Gamzee is your Gamzee no matter what world he’s in, human or troll, king or peasant, he’s still that all-bones, wild-haired, sad-eyed boy you love. He’s yours.

He’s declared your official moirail right away; you’ll have none of their warnings or disapproving glances, this gangly troll is yours and you don’t care who knows it. Besides, you tell them, if you want to work for equality – which, by the way, was the Signless’s message – then why not be a good example?

Your moirail becomes the kingdom gutterblood overnight, but neither of you care. The others seem nervous at first, especially when the assassination attempts really begin to pour in, but you’re capable. You’re a troll once again, with several lifetimes of strife under your belt, and Gamzee is a once-royal indigo, and together you beat back the hate.

But it’s never really gone.

No matter what you do – no matter the laws, the speeches, the punishments – the hate still happens, it never stops being a thing. Sweeps pass, and the classes war as they always did, as you fear they always will. It hurts you, in ways you didn’t think you could hurt. You love them and you hate them in equal measure, and it makes you ache down to your bones. Gamzee holds your weary body and assures you that one day things will be different, better, with you as a leader whose seen worlds at peace – sometimes you believe him, sometimes you don’t. It’s easier to close your eyes and just be when you’re in his arms, anyway.

He’s right, as it turns out. Under the combined rule of you and Dave, with all your friends supporting you, Alternia slowly does change, you think for the better. But that’s sweeps and sweeps in the future. That’s when you’re old and wizened and embittered by loss and heartache. That’s long after Gamzee leaves you, after you fail him once again. He never gets to see the day he promised you, with stars in his eyes.

It happened not too long after his seventh sweep. The assassination attempts had been waning, and you had all been lulled into a false sense of security. In other words, you got complacent. Lazy. Weak. You forgot how old he was, and what that meant; you were a fool for thinking that being a troll once again would change anything. When some of your vassels turned on you, Gamzee was just in time to stop them from slitting your throat. Your attackers fled, and try though you might, you couldn’t stop Gamzee from hunting them down in the name of protecting you. He chased them from the palace, fury in his eyes, and then he never came home.

You went after him, but you were too late, as you always were too late. Your attackers were clever – they wanted Gamzee, not you, and everyone knew the best way to get to a troll was through their moirail. Textbook. Tav and Aradia and Dave all joined you themselves once it was clear Gamzee was taking too long, and by the time you found them, they had him strung up in crude irons, bleeding out and broken. You preach peace, but you can’t even bother to lift a finger when the others hunt down Gamzee’s attackers. Truth be told, you don’t even see them.

You take Gamzee down, gently, gently, and he crumbles into your arms. His beautiful blood paints you, and you stroke his face his horns his hair with sticky fingers. You think he may be dying, and you think you may be in shock, and nothing in the world matters but his soft laughter and adoring starshine eyes as he whispers, already half gone, “I see stars in you, beloved. Don’t let them go out. Not on account of me.”

By the time the others come back, Gamzee is gone, and they find you curled over a corpse and screaming.

==>

It’s endless. You live, you meet him, he dies. Live, meet Gamzee, Gamzee dies. Repeat repeat repeat.

Every new universe is a new chance. You never ask him if he remembers the old ones. You don’t have to, you don’t need to, you don’t want to.

==>

In one universe, as you hold him and he bleeds out in your arms, he murmurs brokenly, “S’what I deserve, best friend. Y’need to - to stop tryin’ to stop it, stop hurting yourself. S’what I deserve, beloved. Beloved…”

You stroke his cheek and you can see your own reflection in the dying light of his eyes, and you know how you look. Your voice is breathless, and more than a little mad. “Will I always have to lose you?”

“You never lost me, Karkat,” he says. He smiles, sweet and clean, and a little more of you dies inside, falls away with him. “You never motherfucking will.”

==>

Every new universe is a new chance to save him. Every new universe you fail. You live, you meet him, he dies.

It’s endless.

==>

“I heard what happened. I’m sorry, Karkles.”

You’ve known Terezi long enough now to tell when she’s being sincere. Though you never really could tell if she and Gamzee made up, it’s clear that she’s genuinely apologetic, if only for the pain his death causes you. Two months ago a gas station was held up while your class was on a field trip - Gamzee went inside to stretch his legs while you waited in the bus. Terezi had been out sick when it happened, which you might have been grateful for, except her presence wouldn’t have made any difference; as you learned over the course of several lifetimes, none of your other friends ever seemed to suffer such tragic and young deaths. Gamzee was the only casualty, and he always would be.

“Yeah, well. I’ve gotten used to it by now.” Which isn’t strictly true - by which you mean, completely and utterly fucking false. The only reason you’re approaching Terezi two months after another untimely Gamzee death is because you spent that time wallowing in self pity, curled up in your bed and refusing to see anyone. This is pretty much your first real interaction with the outside world other than Kankri, who forced you to go out in the first place ‘for your own good’. Asshole.

If Terezi sniffs out your lie - which, newsflash, she obviously does - she doesn’t call you out on it, and you are aggressively grateful. Instead her sympathy grin morphs into her playful grin, and it almost makes you smile back. “Well then, Cherrypie! I assume this isn’t a condolence call, as you would be the one in need of condolence, not me. So here’s my guess: the defendant wishes to call my ability as a Seer to the stand, to discover the truth about the mystery of the Makara murders! Am I correct?”

You scoff beneath your breath, and refuse to admit the sound is fond. “As fucking always. Why do you even bother to ask, you smug freak.”

Terezi cackles triumphantly, teeth abnormally, endearingly sharp, even for a human. “Ha! The prosecution rests! But you have overlooked one thing, counselor,”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Terezi’s grin smooths out, a little; she sobers, and the hardness around her mouth is that of someone older and wiser and wearier than the girl you once knew. She’s still beautiful. “I’m not a Seer anymore, Karkat. And even if I was, I wouldn’t be the Seer you wanted.”

She adjusts the strap of her bag and grins, self deprecatingly. It makes you mad enough that you don’t check your words before they’re out of your mouth. “Of course you are. I mean - no, you’re not, but that’s not the fucking point. I didn’t come to you just because you’re a Seer. I came to you because you’re the smartest, fairest person I’ve ever known, and even though he was a pustulating asshole to you I know you’ll still try and figure this out. Because you’re you, and you’re amazing, not because you’re some fucking washed up Seer.”

She blinks at you, legally blind eyes wide, and then she starts to cackle again - the sound is achingly familiar, and embarrassingly affectionate. She reaches over and scritches sharp nails through your hair. “Never change, Karkat,” she sighs, two parts mocking and one part sincere. “Now then. I honestly don’t know how much I can help you without my powers. I can’t tell you why he keeps dying, or how to stop it. But I can tell you this never happened during the game.”

You try to understand, and fail spectacularly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he never died. I could see every timeline of paradox space, and none of them ever ended in a dead clown. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll bet you anything it’s no accident.”

You would never bet against Terezi, not in a million years. But you set your jaw and decide it doesn’t matter - accident or not, you’ll save him, whatever it takes.

You have to.

==>

Rose.

You were never very close to Rose. The game, countless lifetimes, you hardly ever spoke. You’d choose her over a million faceless humans and trolls, every time, but given the choice between her and the rest of your troupe _(Gamzee Gamzee Gamzee)_ her chances aren’t very great.

“Tell me how to save him.”

It’s for this reason that you cut straight to the chase in this lifetime, once you find her. You don’t want to insult what little relationship you have by pretending you’re here for any other reason than to use her talents. Also to get her book signed, since that’s how you found her in the first place.

“And who should I make this out to?” She says, calm and graceful, and she reminds you of a stream, or a clear, still lake, or some other third thing like that, you don’t fucking know. She might’ve really fooled you into thinking she didn’t know you - didn’t remember - if it weren’t for the faint quirk to her mouth that gives her away; you know Dave well enough to see the family resemblance and know it for what it is.

“How about _“Dear Karkat, I’m being a coy broad when the situation clearly does not call for it because I am a bitch who likes causing her friends psychological pain. Hugs and kisses, Rose!””_

This time the not-grin on her lips is fond, and she leans over to whisper something to her - bodyguard? Of fucking course. As the rest of the line behind you is told firmly that Ms. Lalonde is taking a brief break and she’ll be back soon, Rose takes your arm and leads you to a back room. “You have spent far too much time with my brother. I’ll have to fix that.”

The back room is actually a staircase, which actually leads you to the roof. It’s quite a view; in all your lifetimes, you haven’t been to this earth city yet, but you can’t bring yourself to enjoy it. It’s not like you’re bitter. You just think that you’d have liked it more if you had Gamzee by your side instead of watching him get slowly eaten alive by cancer.

Well. Maybe you’re a little bitter.

“As I’m sure miss Pyrope told you before, I am no longer a Seer, Karkat.” Rose comes up to the rail beside you, draping her arms across it. The wind ruffles her pale hair, and you watch her as you try to decide whether you’re grateful or betrayed that Terezi spoke to her about this behind your back. “Therefore you must be aware that I cannot help you in your noble quest - if it can even be called that.”

You growl. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Just because the game is over,” she says, in the patient, patronizing way you hate, “doesn’t mean it never happened. Likewise, the powers that bind us and run our lives never ceased to exist. Have you ever thought that perhaps this is the way things were intended to be by powers greater than we could ever hope to fathom?”

For a second, you’re frozen stiff, staring at her and wondering if she’ll break character and say ‘psyche you enormous asshole’, but she doesn’t. Her violet eyes are as cool and unreadable as ever, and the slow dawning realization of what she’s implying is a hot knife to the stomach, warming you slowly from the inside with rage.

“What the hell are you saying?”

She shrugs delicately. “It was paradox space that gave us this universe after the horrors of the game. Paradox space that brought back all those we loved and lost. Perhaps paradox space is trying to remedy all it’s previous mistakes - both good and bad. Tell me, Karkat: can you remember a single time Mr. Makara died during all of the game? Even to become god tier? Because I don’t.”

“You spoke to Terezi, you know he didn’t. Stop trying to be so fucking cryptic, it’s ugly on you.” A lie, and a bad one - Lalonde wears cryptic like Kanaya wears the latest fashion, which is very fucking well. Rose continues as though you hadn’t spoken.

"Gamzee committed atrocities in the game that cannot be undone, and he did not pay for them. After everything we went through, is it fair that we had to pay with our lives before even reaching seventeen - most of us more than once - while he got off scot-free?"

You can barely hear her over the pounding of blood in your ears. “Are you telling me - are you saying he’s _supposed_ to die? Paradox space playing some fucked up god, trying to fix the world it broke in the first fucking place by killing him over and over? Are you trying to sell this to me as some sick sort of _justice_ , that I should worship them and prostrate myself before your benevolently shitty gods?” Your scoff comes out more of a snarl. Whoops. “That is putrid dripping horse shit! What kind of “benevolent god” lands us in a fucking zombie apocalypse, huh?” That had been one of your least favorite worlds. Gamzee had practically raised you, protected you from the hordes of the undead, eventually at the cost of his own life. You got to see the antidote created, and the world reborn. He didn’t. “Is that what you’re saying, Rose? Because if it is I swear to all your unholy deities that I will _rage vomit_ on you.”

Rose looks at you, and the line of her mouth, though unsmiling, still feels fond, somehow. It makes you unfathomably angry. “I’m not saying it’s supposed to be anything, Karkat. As I have told you, I am no longer a Seer. It would be presumptuous of me to present such things as undeniable fact. I’m just saying that you might consider all the possibilities, and what it means for your supposedly righteous mission.”

You stare at her.

She stares back.

“So, what does it mean?”

Behind your eyes you can see Gamzee, dead in a hundred different ways, tearing your heart to pieces in a hundred more. You see his accepting smile; you hear his voice, gentle, telling you to let him go. It would be so easy. Trying to keep him has hurt you so much, so deeply – letting go would be a relief you can’t even wrap your weary mind around. Gamzee _wants_ to atone; he wouldn’t blame you for accepting paradox space’s disgusting brand of justice. For giving him up. For letting him go.

What does it mean?

“Nothing. Not a single fucking thing. I don’t give two flaming shits what some disgusting slimy squid in the sky says, I’m going to save him. He’s mine, and I’ll save him if I have to butcher, fry, and serve every last one of your thrice-fucked so-called gods as eldritch fucking calamari.”

For the first time, Rose’s perfect painted lips curve upward in a genuine smile.

==>

This world is in many ways like that first world. You all live in an orphanage together, growing up tight and close. Sollux and Tavros are on one side of you, John and Dave on the other. The girls have their own place, but Terezi and Vriska like to make nightly raids on the boys’ dormitory, probably just to see how far they can push without being caught.

You had forgotten how much you loved all of them, over the course of so many universes gone wrong. Gamzee had been all you’d seen, all that mattered - now there’s game night with Sollux, and Nepeta curled up with one of her rescued cats, and Eridan and you against the world on movie nights. Now there’s Jane baking cookies, and wrestling with Dirk and Jake, and midnight fridge runs with Roxy. Now there’s Kankri’s lectures and skateboards all over the house and Porrim forcing you into wool sweaters. You hadn’t realized how much you missed them in your desperate haze to save Gamzee. You don’t want to let them go again. You have them, and they’re yours.

Gamzee’s yours, too.

That’s the main difference between this world and the first. Yeah, the setting has changed, and now you all live in one big house instead of one small town, but those differences are superficial. Before, you had been missing Gamzee long before you’d ever met him. Now, you can’t remember a time without him, without his cool bony hand in yours.

“A shooting star!”

You’re sixteen years old. Stargazing has become a favored pastime for you and your motley crew in this life. Gamzee makes a blanket of himself around you, to keep out the nighttime chill. A few years ago, you hardly would have had any elbow room for how many kids crowded together on the grass to watch the skies. Now the lawn feels too big, and has been for several years. Steadily kids have been getting adopted. Dave and Dirk by Bro. Jane and John by Dad. Some kids struck out on their own once they came of age, like Meenah and Aranea, to take on the world.

“Kurloz says shooting stars are the most miraculous of miracles.” Gamzee rests his chin on the crown of your head. “Can’t up and waste a shooting star wish.”

You think of him, and how happy you’ve been; you think of wishing that time would stop, that Gamzee wouldn’t have to die, and then you think of that wish getting eaten by the all-knowing assholery of paradox space. You grimace.

“Wishes don’t mean jackshit, numbnuts. If you want something, you have to grab it with both claws and never let go.” Ugh, hands, you mean hands. Old habits really do die hard.

Gamzee is undeterred. “I dunno about that, motherfucker. Ain’t no harm in trying, y’dig? I wish… my best Karbro is happy,”

You freeze.

“I wish he grows up to be whatever he wants to be, and learns to smile with all his precious motherfucking heart. I wish he gets everything he wants, and never has to cry again. I wish his stars never go out.”

You’re not stupid, and neither is he. You’re both sixteen. You both know his time is coming.

You burrow a little further into his embrace. “You can’t tell someone what you wished, moron. It won’t come true.”

He blinks owlishly at you. “Really? Never heard that one my own self. Huh,” he gives a lazy shrug, you can feel the movement from inside his arms. “only motherfucking fair that you tell me what you wished for, eh, brother?”

“I didn’t wish for anything. Told you. I’m not putting my gross white chicken shit in some mystical fucking fairy wish basket. I’ll make my wish come true myself.”

He kisses your temple. “And what’ll that be, beloved?”

You don’t answer. You don’t need to.

Gamzee’s arms tighten around you, and when you look up at the sky, you see a challenge. His birthday is coming up. He never makes it to seventeen. He told you, once, that you never lost him and that you never would - if you have to bear a thousand more lifetimes of this hell, you’ll see that promise proven true.

Thunder begins to rumble overhead, the stars disappearing under dark, ominous clouds. “Looks like rain,” Gamzee says. With your luck, he’ll probably get struck by lightning.

You seize his hand and break for the house at a run, kicking Sollux on the way back. Gamzee honks with laughter behind you, and cold rain is biting at your heels. You think you’re laughing too.

“Bring it on!”

==>

**Author's Note:**

> Team Gamkar's entry for HSWC Main Round 2, written by yours truly! Unfortunately we didn't make it to the finals, but that means I can share this with you all now! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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